TITLE:
A Comparison between Evolutionary Metaheuristics and Mathematical Optimization to Solve the Wells Placement Problem
AUTHORS:
Ghazi AlQahtani, Ahmed Alzahabi, Ernee Kozyreff, Ismael R. de Jr. Farias, Mohamed Soliman
KEYWORDS:
Wells Placement; Genetic Algorithm; Integer Programming
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science,
Vol.3 No.4A,
October
25,
2013
ABSTRACT: The Wells Placement Problem (WPP) consists in choosing well locations within an oil reservoir grid to maximize the reservoir total oil production, subject to distance threshold between wells and number of wells cap constraints. A popular approach to WPP is Genetic Algorithms (GA). Alternatively, WPP has been approached in the literature through Mathematical Optimization. Here, we conduct a computational study of both methods and compare their solutions and performance. Our results indicate that, while GA can provide near-optimal solutions to instances of WPP, typically Mathematical Optimization provides better solutions within less computational time.